New Players' Guide

Welcome to Star Army! This article has the basic steps and info you'll need to participate. Please read it thoroughly.

Setting Overview

“The Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever.” - Konstantin Tsiolkovsk

After endless wars, Earth has become merely a legend. Humanity has survives in the form of its distant colony worlds. Peace is a rarity, carefully maintained in little havens while while military forces fight off against alien invasions. Nations are under siege and overextended, leaving huge frontiers where piracy is becoming increasingly common. Technology is advanced but stagnant, and includes anti-gravity fields, energy weapons, faster-than-light drives, brain-uploading, and free energy from “aether” engines.

Yamatai

The Yamatai Star Empire is a technologically-advanced transhuman empire with most of the population using biological android bodies. It's got anime-inspired flavor and is protected by a huge, politically powerful military called the Star Army, which the site is named after. The Star Army is known for its mass-produced cat-eared warrior women, the Nekovalkyrja (pronounced Nay-ko-wul-ku-ree). Due to their numbers, there are more women than men in Yamatai.

Nepleslia

In stark contrast, The Democratic Imperium of Nepleslia is a gritty cyberpunk nation of humans, cyborgs, and mutants that deals with high crime in its megacities. Mixing of genetic material from super-solider programs has resulted in muscular half-breeds and a population that is considerably more male than female. Nepleslia has a space navy and space marines.

The Vast Universe

As you go through character creation, you'll be introduced to several other interesting factions you can create a character for. You can also make your own faction if you like. Around the known factions is an endless sea of strange aliens, bold outlaws and jealous insurgencies.

Roleplaying Overview

In Star Army, you and other members create characters who live in the high-tech fictional universe of Star Army and then use your imagination to write your character's actions and dialogue to create collaborative stories. You can create and play characters forged by this unique universe and their actions will affect the setting for future players.

Play-by-Post

Star Army is a play-by-post roleplaying community, which means we operate by posting text on the forum. Unlike tabletop roleplaying games, Star Army is mostly just writing and does not use complex game mechanics (math). We post in third-person and in past tense, like a novel. Most story plots have a Game Master (GM) assigned whose job is to guide the story, describe the setting, and write the actions of background characters (NPCs). In the Open Roleplay forum, the creator of the RP thread may act as a GM.

Flexible Time

At a site-wide level, a year in real life is equivalent to a year in the Star Army universe. However, you are not required to stay aligned with the actual dates throughout the year. To help keep track of space and time, please include the location, date, and time at the start of your posts as needed.

A Shared, Living Setting

Star Army is a shared, living world that is always growing. Your writing can add to the setting, and your RP may be affected by events in the setting. Because you'll roleplay with other people, expect to be surprised sometimes! Have fun and be brave.

Account Registration

You must be 16 or older to join Star Army. There is no cost to join or participate.

The wiki login system is separate from the forum one, so you will need to register for both.

Important notes: Forum accounts with 0 posts are regularly deleted as an anti-spam measure, so post something! Also, newly registered users start with private messages disabled and may require posts to be approved by a moderator in some forums until after their third post.

Creating and Roleplaying Characters

Start making characters using the guides found on the Creating A Character wiki page. Once your character is approved you're free to start Roleplaying by joining a plot group or by joining or creating a roleplay thread.

Anyone is welcome to join Open Roleplaying threads so they are a great place to start.

Involves other characters (Give the next poster something to react to!)

Star Army is a community, so get the most out of this site by being proactive; get (and stay) involved. Make friends of your fellow roleplayers by showing them you're fun to write with! It doesn't matter how long you've been a site member: what matters is what you're doing.

Questions and Assistance

Getting into Star Army is easiest when you ask someone to mentor you through it, and we're happy to do that! If we haven't volunteered yet, just ask! You've got questions: there are many ways to get answers or help:

Community Help

These methods allow you to get your questions answered by the community.